A fourth and — the blurb tells us — final go around for precocious young Aggie Morton and her Belgian friend Hector Perot…but, really, how much trouble can these two get up to on a palaeontological expedition on a Dorset beach?

All the books in this series have been very deliberately paced, and in The Seaside Corpse (2022) more than ever you can feel Jocelyn’s hand on the narrative, keeping things in check while gradually sprinkling out information and relationships in the most assured way. The discovery of an ichthyosaurus skeleton on the beach at Lyme Regis has brought the world-renowned Professor Henry Blenningham-Crewe and his company down to excavate this wonderful find. Alongside the sundry staff who make these expeditions run — an elderly secretary, two men-of-all-work, a chef of somewhat dubious skill — the real brains of the operation appears to be Mr. B-C’s younger wife, Nina, who is used to provide a window of sorts onto the difficulties faced by women in this period who wished to make their way in the sciences.

“My question is, if women are not excellent scholars, then why are men like you willing to take credit for our work?”

And Mrs. B-C is not the only discontented person here. Indeed, it seems Mr. B-C has gone out of his way to put up the backs of just about everyone on the expedition: whether making lewd remarks to Helen Malone — the daughter of the aforementioned cook, Spud, a man better known for his temper than his tempura — threatening to fire photographer Everett Tobie, or setting rival buyers for the skeleton at reach other’s throats, Blenningham-Crewe really should have SOMEONE IS GOING TO MURDER ME tattooed on his forehead…and even that wouldn’t make him change his ways, one feels.

There follows an evening when everyone’s precise location is difficult to pin down, and Mr. B-C fails to come home from his night’s carousing. Colour no-one surprised, then, when his body is discovered by Aggie and Hector in the morning on the very beach that is the focus of their attentions. And so the usual games begin: who was the professor meeting in the local pub? Why does American millionaire Alonso Osteda have a black eye? Why are Osteda and circus proprietor Cavalier Jones, previous rivals for the priceless skeleton, now the very firmest of friends? And exactly how does secretary Sylvia Spinns fit into proceedings?

It’s a shame to report, then, that as a murder mystery The Seaside Corpse is a complete dud. Jocelyn does good work in enabling Aggie and her various new young friends — including Arthur Haystead, whose “brain cell friction when alone was likely as active as a snail on grass” — to remain informed of proceedings (MVP of this is Aggie’s Grannie Jane: “People answered her questions as they never would with a twelve-year-old”), but everything else is…well, disappointing. The scant clues that present themselves end up being ignored, the solution manages to sweep aside a key suspect solely because they “seemed pretty unlikely”, and the key question at the heart of the whole thing goes ignored because…well, I’m not sure why, to be honest. The mystery elements of these books had been getting stronger as the series progressed, so it’s a disappointment to see things in this vein fizz out so completely.

In other regards, however, the book is far more successful, and one can’t help but feel that it’s the light touch with some difficult topics which are responsible for this winning the 2023 Edgar for Best Juvenile Mystery. The clear feminist message that feels like Jocelyn’s main intention is handled very well, and aspects of parochial racism (“[They] take one look at a brown face and assume they’ve got a criminal…”) support the main events without overbalancing proceedings. Equally, the horror of stumbling over a dead body, especially that of someone you have known and worked with, is conveyed with an admirably fine brush — leaving no doubt as to the awful nature of making such a discovery, but also allowing for moments of almost gallows humour to be worked in, as anyone likely would in such a situation.

And in two key aspects, the novel is exceptional. The first of these is the genuine excitement communicated in the palaeontological elements of the plot: the ‘dry run’ of the excavation, the problems encountered which mean a new approach is needed on the day itself, always aware of the complications added by the waxing and waning tide…Jocelyn’s writing has been improving from book to book, and this feels almost like the summit of her achievement, so brilliantly does she capture the era, the context, and the practicalities of such an undertaking. When I think of this book in future, it will be the ichthyosaurus which comes to mind first.

The other magnificent success of this is how well Jocelyn captures young Aggie and her interactions with the world around her. There’s nothing showy about any of this, but the clarity of some tiny moments — such as our heroine’s joy at having a map on a car journey enables her to see the world in a way she had not before, or the novelty of waking up in a tent for the first time — communicate Jocelyn’s talent as a writer of characters quite wonderfully. Were this not the final entry in the series, I’d probably still read these books even though the mystery aspect might disappoint as thunderously as it does here because of how piquantly Jocelyn captures her people.

Rather aptly, like Spud Malone’s cooking, The Seaside Corpse proves to be something of a curate’s egg, but one that reaches its concluding moments with some real grace and a delightfully subtle manner. I can understand why Marthe Jocelyn might wish to put Aggie and Hector out to pasture, at least for the time being, but this series has done strong work in all aspects in its short lifespan. A few nods to the Agatha Christie canon which inspired these books are also a nice touch, and again Jocelyn is to be commended for her restraint — there may be no more Aggie Morton on the author’s horizon, but I look forward eagerly to whatever comes next.

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The Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen series by Marthe Jocelyn: